


Wonder

by ThroughTime



Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Dad!Jamie, Eager!Claire, F/M, Fluff, Infertility, NSFW
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-09-07 19:22:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16859881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThroughTime/pseuds/ThroughTime
Summary: Claire Beauchamp left England after her divorce looking for a new start, and Scotland has been good to her. But a chance meeting at the grocery store sets her life on a thrilling and unfamiliar trajectory.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a short one, but we're just getting started!

     The little girl was standing near the opposite end of the aisle, backed up almost all the way to the shelving. I didn’t notice much about her other than her presence at first, certainly not the frightened knit of her eyebrows or the way way her little fingers kneaded the fabric of her striped dress. I was on the hunt for olives - no pimentos, Geillis hated them - and luxuriating in the fact that I had a full two days off of work, and no reason in the world to rush. To most people, a two day break was standard - they’d be wishing for three as Sunday drew to a close. But, as we often joked at the hospital during rare stolen moments in the on-call lounge, surgeons never sleep. I’d logged 92 hours this week, and by some miracle of scheduling wasn’t needed again until Monday morning.

  
     I continued down the aisle, huffing quietly as I realized my only option featured pimentos. Despite having traveled the world as a girl and being accustomed to a wide range of food situations, studying in the states had left me absolutely spoiled as it pertained to grocery shopping. Unreasonably distracted by the task at hand, I looked up upon hearing a sniffle to find I was just a meter or so away from running straight into the little redhead, who I now saw was quite distressed. Her big blue eyes were brimming with tears, but her lower lip was jutted out in defiance of everything else her manner displayed. She glanced up at me for a quick moment before returning her gaze to the main aisle that ran perpendicular, and I hoped my smile had shown in time for her to see it. After steering my cart to the side of the aisle, I approached slowly and squatted before her, trying to seem as unintimidating as a stranger at the Co-Op could. She looked at me through long, dark red lashes, lips pursed in the effort not to cry.  
   

     “Hello there, my name is Claire.” My voice was soft, head cocked subconsciously to the side. “Are you alright?”

  
     She shook her head, ruddy curls swinging to and fro.  
     

     “Have you lost track of your parents?” I asked, watching for a moment as the tremble of her lower lip grew until it fell open in a wail and the tears that had threatened began to fall.  
   

     “Oh, oh, you’ll be alright, darling,” I cooed, heart aching. I reached out a hand and she took it, cries subsiding into quiet whimpers and sniffles. “I’d like to help you find them, if that’s alright with you.”  
   

     The little girl nodded, sniffling again as she thrust her little body into my arms. I was surprised - children didn’t usually take to strangers so quickly, in my experience - but I hugged her back, offering up what soft comforts I could. After a final squeeze, she released me from her surprisingly strong grip and stepped back, wiping at her still falling tears with the back of her hand.  
     

     “What’s your name?” I asked, smoothing back a curl stuck to her cheek without thinking.  
     

     “Genevieve,” she murmured, looking at the ground again.  
     

     “What a pretty name!” I remarked, happy when she smiled shyly at the compliment. “Now Genevieve, what do your parents look like?”  
     

     “He’s, umm -” she hiccuped, shifting from one foot to the other as she thought. “He’s tall, ’n he’s…he’s got red hair like mine ’n…his name’s Da.”  
     

     “Well don’t you worry,” I said with a smile, standing again. “We’ll find your Da in no time.”  
     

     I offered her a hand, but instead of taking it she reached her jacket clad arms into the air, looking at me expectantly with big, dark green eyes. I stalled for a moment, slightly uncomfortable with the idea of carrying her back to her father lest it be seen as something it most certainly was not, but the look on her face won me over and I scooped her up, resting her against my hip as I began to navigate my cart with one hand. It was something I’d noted parents doing in the store from time to time but that I had no experience with, and I found it more difficult than it appeared. Still, I managed to steer it into the main aisle and began pushing forward, both of us looking down each aisle we passed. She shrieked as we came upon the fourth aisle, throwing herself forward in such a manner that required my cart pushing hand to ensure she didn’t fall straight to the ground.  
     

     “Is that him?” I asked, already knowing the answer.  
     

     “Da, Da!” she yelled again, and I abandoned my cart momentarily to return her safely to his arms. He swung around at the sound of his daughter’s voice, a look of relief washing over his face when his eyes landed on her. He charged towards us and and my eyes grew wide; what little Genevieve hadn’t mentioned was that her father was quite a handsome man. Tall, and clearly well built even under his jacket, his bone structure alone was something to make any woman swoon - straight out of a museum. The girl threw herself forward out of my arms again and her father took a hurried step closer to catch her, landing well into my personal space. I silently scolded myself for the girlish thoughts flitting through my head, but couldn't force myself to take a step back.  
     

     Genevieve buried her head in her father’s neck, whimpering quietly with tears of relief. Her father hugged her tight, whispering comforts against her curls in Gaelic.  


_Of course he speaks bloody Gaelic._  
     

     He pulled back after a moment to look at her, wiping tears off her cheek with a gentle thumb. “Ye scairt me, lass,” he told her, and my knees nearly buckled. Having lived in Scotland for nearly two years I hardly noticed the accent any more, but something in his low, rich voice melted me like butter.  
     

     Forcing myself to tear my eyes away - I’d been standing there much too long - I turned to go on with my shopping, but a large hand on my arm stopped me. A shiver ran up my spine, and I couldn’t help the accompanying flush. Christ, his hand encircled my entire upper arm; I wanted him to grab me everywhere, to feel his soft touch juxtaposed with the immense power he surely possessed.  


_What in the name of God has gotten into you, Beauchamp?_  
     

     “Dinna be thinkin’ yer gettin’ away without a thank ye, lass,” he said with a low chuckle the made my stomach flip. His lingering hand on my arm didn’t help matters. “Truly, thank ye. I’ve never lost track of one of ‘em like that before, scairt me half to death.” He directed the last part at his daughter, a smile on his lips as he gave her a final squeeze and returned her to the seat in his cart beside her sister. She giggled, pulling an echoing laugh from her father as he buckled her in, and I was struck by how natural a father he appeared to be. I’d never really thought of that as an attractive quality in a man, but on him I found it unbelievably sexy. Frank had always been a little awkward around children, stiff and unsure of how to talk to them. I told myself back then that it would be different when the child was his own, our own, but watching the man before me I realized that there was something to it that was just intrinsic, couldn’t be learned. Whoever those girls called Mam was a lucky woman.  
   

      “I can’t even imagine,” I answered, aware of the way his ocean blue eyes returned intently to meet mine and of my growing desire to take my clothes off and swim in them. “Are you feeling better, sweetheart?” I asked, doing my damndest to push those thoughts from my mind, unusual as they were for me.  
     

     She nodded and answered, “Thank ye, Miss Claire!” rather shyly, I thought, for a girl who had just willingly climbed into the arms of an absolute stranger.  
     

     “You are very welcome, Miss Genevieve.” I beamed back, straightening again to look at her father. “Well, I’ll let you three get back to your shopping, I’m sure you’ve got big plans for the day.” Again I turned to go, but his hand shot out after me, this time landing on the small of my back, warm under his touch.  
     

     “Thank ye, Claire, again,” he said, nodding to me as he turned back to his cart. The way his lips curled around my name was like Orpheus calling me back from Hell, I thought as I snuck a final backwards glance, watching as he turned the corner.

_I wish I knew his name._

_\---_

     In the weeks since my run in at the Co-Op, I was embarrassed to admit how often my thoughts floated to the strapping, red headed Scot. I found myself missing turns on the drive home, lingering for far too long at the nurses’s station and even, on occasion, burning meals daydreaming about the way his eyes had looked so warmly into mine. I wasn’t like this; I didn’t obsess over men, especially men I didn’t even know! It had been two years since my divorce and I’d hardly been involved with men at all - a fact I rather was proud of. I had a life and a job that I loved and I wasn’t going to waste any more of my time, but something about this man in particular made me desperate to know him in a way I couldn't explain. With Frank, I’d never once giddily replayed the way he said my name in my mind, imagining what it would sound like whispered against my lips or tired with the sleep of early morning. His touch, even his most intimate touch - which I did enjoy in the beginning - had never warmed me the way this man’s had, like it was thrumming in my very bones. I wanted to watch the Scotsman overcome with uncontrollable laughter, to taste the skin at the crook of his neck, to find out what songs he liked to play on long car rides. Did he sing along or just listen? What did he look like, worn out after a long day, arms flexing as he laid little Genevieve down in her crib? I wondered how he slept, if he pulled the covers up over his shoulders or let them rest at his waist, if he rolled about or stayed still, if he preferred pajamas or sleeping in the nude.  
     

     This was foreign. I wasn’t like this. This man pulled something out of me I didn’t know existed and that fact weighed on my mind every single day because I hadn’t a clue who he was.

     I didn’t have to wonder about his hands. I’d felt them, on my arm and on the small of my back, and I could still feel them burning there, callous roughened skin and large fingers and heat. In my more shameful moments - I did not know this man! - I imagined what his thumb would feel like tracing my lips and how small I would feel if he were to take me by the waist. I thought about how his hands would feel on my bare skin, covering my breasts and trailing featherlight touches along my clavicle. I never gave into these fantasies, of course, as that would be terribly inappropriate, but not without effort.

     On this particular day, seated in the doctors lounge for lunch between surgeries, I imagined his hand in mine, our fingers intertwined in the simple, intimate way of lovers; how it would feel if he were to tighten his grasp and pull me to him and hold me there, pressed up against him, one hand round my back and the other playing with my hair. Would he kiss me straight away? Or would he make me wait, our lips just inches apart until finally gravity took over?

     “Who’re ye daydreamin’ about, Beauchamp?” Geillis asked with a grin, plopping down in the chair across from mine. “Ye look damn taken with him!” As my first friend in Scotland, and my closest friend as it stood now, Geillis felt entitled to my every thought. She was especially interested in my thoughts on men, unable to understand a woman who didn’t want to get laid at least bi-weekly. She was constantly prodding me to get on some app or another, or to let her dress me up and take me out to the bars - which I had done, twice, and which had ended disastrously. I hadn’t the slightest bit of interest in either of those things.

_I really hadn't been interested in men at all until Genevieve lead me to her father._

     “Would you stop,” I huffed with a good natured roll of my eyes. “I’m trying to enjoy my lunch in peace.”

     “And I’m tryin’ tae keep appraised of the men in my best friend’s life, but she’s makin’ it verra difficult for me,” she retorted, popping to top off of the Tupperware of salad she’d packed. “In two years I’ve never seen ye even admit tae havin’ a crush and suddenly yer blushin' and dreamy for a month now wi’out a word to me? I ken tell ye still havena gotten laid, so I’d like to ken who in the hell it is that’s keepin’ ye waitin’ wi’ such interest.” Her comment on my blushing only made me blush more, internally damning my complete lack of a poker face for the thousandth time. I couldn’t keep anything from anyone it seemed, especially not the ever perceptive plastics surgeon who’d squirreled her way into my life.

     “It’s nothing, just someone I met,” I insisted, still foolishly hoping she'd buy it.

     “Ye nearly gettin’ run down by a stretcher in the hall las’ night is no’ nothin’, Claire Beauchamp,” Geillis chided. I glared at her, though a smile still pulled at my lips, and sat back in my chair resigned to the fact that she wasn’t going to stop prying until she got what I wanted. Her response was a flick of her shoe against my ankle, brow arched in challenge, and I offered up a middle finer before answering. 

     “It really is nothing and you’re an absolute pill. I ran into someone at Co-Op a few weeks ago. He was…attractive,” I admitted, trying and failing to push the image of him from my mind. “But I don't even know his name and I’m likely never going to see him again, so that’s that.” Saying it aloud, that that was our one and only encounter, made me feel oddly hollow.

     “Ooh, what’d he look like?” She practically squealed and I rolled my eyes.

     “Not important,” I intoned, glancing at the clock. “Well would you look at that, you’ve robbed me of my lunch break, and I’ve got a consult in five minutes.” I pushed my chair back and stood, forking one more large bite of pasta salad into my mouth before screwing the lid back on the container and dropping it into my lunch bag, which I then pushed in her direction. “Put this back in the fridge.”

     “Ye’re no’ gettin’ out o’ this one sae easy,” she teased as I straightened my coat and strode toward the door. I knew I wouldn't, but at least respite for the time being.

  
I made my consult just in time, quickly taking stock of the clipboard handed to me by the nurse. A tonsillectomy on a five year old girl due to recent painful swallowing. Easy. I heard the chatter of two little voices and knocked twice, waiting a moment before pushing the door open.

     “Hello there, I’m Doctor Beau-” my voice caught when I found bright blue eyes looking back at me.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claire finds a surprising patient in her exam room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I ended up combining the first two chapters because they were just too short, so here's your real chapter two. As always, thank you for reading and thank you for being patient! It's been almost five years since I've written anything, so hang in there and I promise good things to come.

     I sputtered for a moment, my cheeks aflame as I searched desperately for a voice which had been lost to the face I’d been daydreaming about for weeks. He was dressed in jeans and a white button up, and though it wasn’t “tight,” per se, it showed off substantially more of his musculature than the jacket I’d last seen him; I found myself a little weak in the knees. Despite my doctorly ability to remain even keeled and outwardly calm regardless of what was thrown at me - while I was on the clock, anyway - I was rooted to the spot, unable to force myself to say something or pick my jaw up off the ground.

     Before I knew what had happened, little Genevieve flew off her father’s lap with an excited squeal of my name and wrapped herself around my legs. She grinned as I bent down to meet her level, and I smiled back, surprised and truly flattered she remembered who I was. 

     “Fancy meeting you here, Genevieve!” I said, taking the small hand she extended and shaking it before I pressed back to my full height to greet her father. His wide, easy smile caught me for a moment and I tried to suppress the feeling in my gut as I added, “And you as well, Mr -” a quick consulting of my clipboard to finally put his name together in my mind and on my lips - “Fraser.”

_James Fraser. A truly Scottish name for a truly Scottish man._

     His size didn’t go without note as he stood to shake my hand, just as it hadn’t the first time we’d met; how far I had to look up in order to meet his eye, the way his warm hand dwarfed mine for the fleeting moment they held each other, how small I felt when faced with him. I’d felt small before, after the death of my parents and later of Uncle Lamb, after Frank and I would fight and after out divorce. It had never been a pleasant feeling. It was as if everything was crashing in on me and I could do nothing to stop it. In those small, dark moments, the world was so vast, and I merely a desolate little piece of it, powerless against its great and mysterious forces. But this, with James, was a different kind of small. It wasn't cold, it wasn't frightening; it was something like home.

     His voice, warm and gruff and telling me to call him Jamie, pulled me back into reality and I offered a conciliatory look, hoping my daydreaming hadn’t displayed itself all too publicly. 

     “Only if you'll call me Claire,” I replied, glancing up at him through my lashes as I set my clipboard on the desk before me and uncapped my pen. “I’m not Dr. Beauchamp among friends.”

_Christ, I'm being absolutely shameless._

     I looked to Genevieve with a smile that wrinkled my nose, hoping to convey that of course I meant the girls, then turned my attention to her older sister. “And you,” I started, flipping through my chart quickly when I realized all mental notes on her case had slipped from my grasp upon seeing her father, “must be Isla. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

     The girl wriggled further into her father’s side and I noticed her feet absently kicking back and forth where they hung a foot or so off the ground, sparkly pink Mary Janes glinting under the stark hospital lights. A beat passed before she would meet my eye, and when she did her pale cheeks pinked the color of a peony - she was certainly the shyer of the two. 

     “Nice to meet you,” she murmured after Jamie gave her a little nudge, offering her hand the same way her sister and father had.

“Goodness, aren’t you two polite for lasses so young?” I remarked as I rolled my stool over to sit across from her. “So, I hear you’re in need of a tonsillectomy.” Big green eyes turned to her father and he nodded encouragingly, a gesture she then repeated in my direction.

     “Well you’re in good hands, I promise. I just need to take a look at a few things today, and then I’ll talk to your father and get you all scheduled to come and see me again for the procedure. Does that sound alright?” Isla answered quietly in the affirmative and followed me to to the examination table. “You can hop right up here,” I directed her, pulling out the sliding stairs with my foot whilst removing the stethoscope from around my neck. The paper crinkled familiarly under her weight as she settled herself and I immediately felt a little more comfortable, more in control. The sight of him had caught me completely off guard, but at least I was in my element. 

     “What’s that?” Genevieve asked, suddenly at my side and peering up with interest.

     “Genevieve, dinna bother the doctor while she’s tryin’ ta have a look at yer sister,” Jamie scolded, but I stopped him before he could even get out of his chair with a quick wave of my hand and an assurance that it wasn’t a bother at all.

     “It’s called a stethoscope, and it lets me listen to people’s hearts,” I told her, and I turned to grab a bottle of antiseptic and a cotton ball from the high shelf above my station in anticipation of what I guessed her answer would be to my next question. “Would you like to try it?”

     The little girl nodded excitedly and sent her curls swinging, looking between me and her father as I wiped the ear pieces. Isla looked on with only vague interest as I bent down and helped her sister put them in, then pressed the diaphragm to my heart, over my sweater and under my lab coat. Genevieve listened intently, staring at me with wide eyed delight before pulling the ear pieces out and exclaiming, “It’s faster than the one at home!”

     I had been aware of Jamie’s eyes on me as this all transpired, but grew painfully so as his daughter's innocent comment outed my heart rate I assumed in comparison to a toy stethoscope, which sounded at an average rate. I laughed it off, holding out my hand for the instrument so I could start my examination. After the typical warning about it being a little chilly I began listening to the sounds of Isla’s chest, barely aware of her sister’s attempts to scale the side of the table. Her father rose quickly from his chair and scooped her up, scolding her again about getting in my way.

     “Would you like to watch?” I asked as she tried to squirm free of her father's arms. “If your dad would be kind enough to hold you up, you two could come and stand over by me and I’ll tell you all about the tools I'm using.”

     Again proving to be the attentive father I liked to think of him as, Jamie settled the girl on his hip and came to stand beside me for the remainder of the examination, watching with a lopsided smirk as his daughter asked all kinds of questions, from the expected to the adorably silly. I enjoyed having him so near more with each passing second. 

     “Perhaps I’ve a wee doctor on my hands,” he remarked as we settled back into our chairs once I had seen to Isla. 

     “She’d make a great one!” His eyes met mine and held them, my heart rising in my chest with each second that passed. I was the first to look away, afraid that if I swam in those Grecian pools any longer I’d drown. “Everything looks great,” I affirmed, turning my attentions back to his oldest daughter. “Do you have any questions about the procedure, Isla?”

     She’d warmed to me substantially during the examination and her reply came without delay this time. “Will it hurt?” The question seemed to come from a place of curiosity, not fear. Surgery was mildly concerning to some children and absolutely terrifying to others, and I was glad both for her sake and Jamie’s that she was in the camp of the former. 

     “Hardly at all.” I didn’t make a habit of lying to children, even when it might be easier than the truth. “You’ll be asleep while I perform the procedure, and once you wake up it won’t be any worse than a sore throat. But,” I intoned, a glint in my eye, “that means that while your throat is healing, you’re not allowed to eat anything but soup…and ice cream!” This was the fun part of meeting with tonsillectomy patients, watching their little eyes grow wide with excitement at the prospect of eating an ice cream diet under doctor’s orders. The shock and joy on her face as she looked between me and her father made me grin.

     “Me too, me too!” Genevieve chimed in, leaning in towards her sister to chatter about all the flavors they wanted. I hadn’t noticed Jamie on his phone until he handed it to Isla, slid Genevieve off of his lap and told them they could watch a video while he talked to me. He leaned against the examination table and I followed suit, chuckling to myself as I heard the first few notes of Let It Go sounding. I’d never been much for princesses as a girl, but even I had to admit that the popularity of Disney’s latest was truly astounding. With a final glance over at his girls, he stepped in closer to me and I had to keep myself from swooning as the heat from his body reached mine. The look on his face was unreadable, but there was something stirring behind the dazzling blue of his eyes.

     “So, this procedure…” he trailed off in search of exactly what he wanted to say. I’d seen it plenty of times, the mask of parental bravery falling away the second their children weren’t looking, but this time it made me ache to take him in my arms and assure him completely that his child would be safe in my hands. “How - how dangerous is it?”

     His eyes were intent on mine, and although I knew it was simply because he wanted the answer to a very important question, the girlish part of me that seemed only to exist for him wondered if perhaps he liked looking at me just as much as I liked looking at him.

     "It’s an easy surgery for little ones,” I told him softly. My hand moved without my consent to give his arm a reassuring squeeze, and a terribly inappropriate image of him lifting me as if I weighed nothing floated into my mind’s eye when I felt the muscles there - try as I might, it wasn’t going away. Realizing that I hadn’t gone on with my thought, I cleared my throat and pressed ahead, aware of the heat rising in my cheeks. “She’ll be in an out within a matter of hours. Surgery can be nerve wracking, but I promise a tonsillectomy is hardly anything to lose sleep over.”

     He laughed then, a low, quick chuckle that had me fighting off the quirk of my lips. I wanted to hear it again and again. 

     “I lose sleep over them gettin’ enough vegetables,” he quipped, a glint in his eye.

     “I’m sure,” I replied, allowing a little laughter to bubble up and out of my lips.

     “Ye don’t have children?”

     The question caught me completely off guard and I stammered, pressing my nails into the flesh of my palm in an attempt to get ahold of myself. “I, ehm - no…I don’t.” I hoped it was said with the conviction of a woman who’d made a decision instead of one who gave up on a desire that wasn’t to be.

     Jamie was quiet for a moment, and I had to avert my eyes to escape his searching gaze. There was an intensity to him, his physical presence, the way he spoke, the way he looked at me, that I’d never felt from someone before. It made me dizzy and curious and nervous all at once. Finally, he broke the silence with a distinct Scottish noise and a smile that my stomach doing backflips.

     “Weel, ye did bring one lass back to me safely, so I trust ye wi’ the other,” he murmured, checking that the girls were still engrossed in his phone and not our conversation. 

     “Thank you, Jamie,” I said quietly, unusually touched by the trust that parents put in me every day simply because today, it was coming from him. 

_What was it about this man?_

     “It doesna’ hurt that I’ve been doing a little reading an’ they say yer one o’ the best surgeons in the country,” he added with what I thought might have been a poorly executed wink.

     I shook my head, looking up at him once more as I assured him that I was just a normal surgeon doing her job. We fell quiet again, but this time I didn’t look away. I held his gaze through the clenching of my heart, despite it being all I could do not to kiss him then and there. He was so close, his head bent towards me, I wouldn't have to take more than a step and I could taste him, feel his stubble brushing against my skin and his fiery hair between my fingers. It was as if I was fighting gravity itself. It wasn’t until we’d come to our senses, clearing throats and looking sheepish as we both pulled away, that I realized just how far into each other we’d drifted from where we’d stood a matter of minutes ago. I wondered if perhaps, Jamie felt the pull, too.

     After we’d parted ways outside of the examination room I ducked into the nurses station to drop off my clipboard. I was in rush, already over five minutes late to my next appointment, and there just barely long enough to overhear something that had me blushing a girlish pink and admonishing myself for it in equal measure. 

 

\---

 

     “Da, she’s the prettiest doctor I e’r seen!” Isla exclaimed in an attempted whisper as he lead the trio out from the hall of exam rooms towards the reception area.

     Jamie shook his head, a wide grin on his lips as he chuckled at his eldest daughter. “Aye lass, she is quite lovely,” he replied, handing each girl her coat as they reached the desk. “Help yer sister into her coat, Isla, and ye two can play wi’ the toys o’er there ’til I’m done.” With that the two girls were off, bouncing and giggling with coats in hand. He made the appointment quickly, feeling the heat rise in his cheeks when he asked for the soonest available appointment. It perturbed him, how delighted he was to see the curly wigged sassenach today; how badly he wanted to see her again. She had floated into his mind now and again since they first met at Co-Op, but he’d no reason to think they’d ever cross paths again and had pushed the thoughts away.

     On the drive home, he sped down the motorway two exits past that which would take them home, caught up in wondering if Claire had really been looking at him the way he remembered her to have been in that moment before they left.

 


End file.
